#ask firebird

Armilly gets to talk to Gilgamech, she gushes about how great he is, he’s internally like “finally good wife material” Orik, knowing his friend is like “if you so much as touch this child I’ll stomp you to death with my hooves”

Meanwhile, Coco finds Hypathica and she shows her the peasants aren’t exactly happy with Gilgamech’s rule. Like these people are burning effigies of him and calling him a tyrant mad.

Armilly, after hanging off the king for an evening and them both loving every second of it he offers her a position as a squire. Her, a massive royal loyalist and already planning on joining the army soon, enthusiastically agrees. 

From there Copernica goes back to school Armilly starts squire training though is unknowingly being courted by Gilgamech the whole time while Orik is trying to convince the king all the reason this is a terrible idea.

Luckily Armilly is rather oblivious though eventually she catches on and isn’t really sure what to feel (honey it should be disgust) she just kind of hopes things don’t escalate and she can prove herself as a knight rather than anything else.

A few months later Gilgamech throws another party, albeit a smaller than the one they met (still close to a hundred guests) that turns out to be an engagement party. There he very publically proposes to Armilly.

That’s when Armilly is like “*laughing* I’m in danger”

Since either way, she’s screwed. If she says no her career in the military is dead before it can even begin. If she says yes then she’s officially a major political figure with zero prep in how to manage that kind of responsibility.

Orik immediately takes over training of Armilly, mostly to give her more space from Gilgamech. At first, he tries to get her to run away but she still thinks that she can do some good. That this isn’t some romance thing and definitely not political since she’s no one from who the hell cares. It’s probably just platonic right? That’s the only thing that makes sense, denial? Never met her.

Orik then switches gears to more political training since if he can’t convince her to leave he can at least prepare her for the position she’s going to be forced into.

From there other stuff happens. As soon as Copernica gets word of the engagement Hypathica helps her gets an apprenticeship in the castle so she can be close to her friend.

While all this is going on Galleo ends up in his own apprenticeship as a nurse in the city (thanks to his mom). He isn’t too happy about it since it’s a lot of work, and worse end up roped into a revolution against the crown and because he unknowingly befriends some of the leaders of this revolution (the twins who they themselves stumbled into a leadership position despite being literal children)

Orik also has an on again off again GF who keeps calling him out on not doing enough to protect Armilly and not calling out his friend publically. That marrying a commoner isn’t going to fix the systemic issues the public is mad about.

The way I’d write Armilly is a lot like Sansa Stark from GoT. Basically, everyone underestimates her intelligence constantly but she’s able to cleverly play into Gilgamech and other nobles egos, along with the laws and traditions of the kingdom to keep herself safe in this very dangerous situation. She’s also very compassionate and does believe in being in a hero. Though in this quickly learns this isn’t a battle she can win with a sword.